Forum:Violet's mother-in-law
Violet's mother-in-law While the tradition in the English peerage that landed peers are numbered, their spouses are not. It just isn't how they are titled since they only have the title through marriage. There might have been no Countresses if any the Earls were bachelors or widowers when they inherited the title. Also there are multiple Countesses if the Earls were married, widowed and then remarried. Also it's never been established that Violet's father-in-law was the 4th Earl. User:HarryPotterRules1 based this on the idea that the Earldom past down father to son each time since the 1st Earl which was speculative and now shown to be wrong by dialogue in Episode 3.01. CestWhat (talk) 21:41, October 31, 2012 (UTC) :Violet herself says "It always looked rather dark while my mother-in-law lived here" - she is talking about Crawley House, meaning that, if her mother-in-law, WAS the fourth countess (as I have stated in the article) then the fourth Countess/Violet mother-in-law lived in Crawley House because the third countess was still alive and living in the Dower House. :And, as it happens, ther ARE countesses: Violet kept the title AFTER she was widowed. The wife of the first earl is the "The Countess of Grantham": I wrote "first countess", "second countess", "third countess" and so on to distinguish between which woman I was talking about. :Once again, your high handed and frankly f***ing ignorant behaviour meant that you didn't ask me how I came to this, and removed it. Episode 3.01 cannot be taken as proper evidence, since Matthew and Robert - if Matthew was right about his great-great-grandfather descending from the Third Earl's second son - would be THIRD COUSINS not THIRD COUSINS ONCE REMOVED, meaning that it is wrong. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 21:48, October 31, 2012 (UTC) :: "if she was the fourth countess." If she was a Dutch dwarf could go in it. I know how User:HarryPotterRules1 came up with this because we have this discussed this tons of times for months. The show is right. This was hashed out before.CestWhat (talk) 22:06, October 31, 2012 (UTC) :: :::As far as we know, the title of Earl has gone First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth - this can be supported by episode 3.07 when Murray says that the third Earl almost went bankrupt and the fourth only saved Downton by dying: this means that three and four were father and son, and thus Patrick, as the fifth earl, was the son of the fourth earl, meaning that it went 1, 2, 3, 4, Patrick, Robert. This also means that Matthew's words of being descended from the third earl is wrong, since he'd have to be descended from the SECOND earl to be related to Robert as his third cousin-once-removed. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 22:00, October 31, 2012 (UTC) ::::The start of that response gives it away. Quoting, "As far as we know..." Actually we know it's wrong because of Episode 3.01 where Matthew clears as day says his great-great grandfather was a younger son of the 3rd Earl. It's totally pausible and isn't impossible as User:HarryPotterRules1 is maintaining (younger brothers can inherit from older brothers, nephews can inherit from uncles, grandsons can inherit from grandfathers, etc...). Nothing George Murray says about the 3rd Earl or 4th Earl establishes how they were related to each other. : This case is different from the usual disagreement. Usually it's a "we don't know for certain, but can over infer from this or that dialogue." This case, the dialogues establishes that the Earldom didn't always pass down each time from father to son. CestWhat (talk) 22:14, October 31, 2012 (UTC) : : The case is no different: Murray's words state that Three and four were closely related, e.g. third was the father of fourth. Given that It was Third, Fourth, Patrick, Robert, this means it must be THE SECOND EARL, who is the ancestor of both. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 22:30, October 31, 2012 (UTC) : Actually, HPR, in real world history it is well attested that a title didn't always pass in a linear line from father to son. Look up the Dukes of Norfolk in particular, and other peerages. I guarantee that not all passed straight from father to son. As regards what you say, HPR, I too thought that the Grantham title had passed from father to son - until 3x01. With Matthew's statement in that episode and Violet's comment about her mother-in-law, I'm inclined to think that Robert's father could have succeeded his grandfather as Earl, but it's just a conjecture. : Dragonrider2 (talk) 20:37, November 1, 2012 (UTC) : Murray's words do not even imply that Earl #3 and Earl #4 knew each other. He says, and I quote: "The past is not much of a model. The third Earl nearly went bankrupt, the fourth only saved the estate by dying, and what would you all have done in the '90s without Lady Grantham's money?". How in blazes can we infer from this line that the Third Earl and the Fourth Earl were father and son? -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| talk page!]] 15:35, November 1, 2012 :: Simple, Seth. The Earldom, as revealed by the series 1 press pack, was created in 1772, meaning that between 1772 and around 1920 there have been six earls: That's aboout 20 years per Earl - this infers that 3 was DIRECTLY succeeded by 4, who then died, allowing PATRICK to become Earl, thus it went 1, 2, 3, 4, Patrick, Robert, in direct succession. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 21:09, November 1, 2012 (UTC) : Of course the Fourth Earl was succeeded by the Fifth Earl (it's only logical, of course, unless there was a Fourth-and-a-Half-th Earl) but that's not the question. What we are discussing is that the Fourth and Fifth Earls may not have been father and son. You seem to be supporting your argument on the fact that they were indeed, but there's little to prove that it is so -- in fact, Dragonrider2 and CestWhat have presented compelling evidence to the contrary. : To help you visualise, you can see how Matthew will (or did, I suppose -- it's been 92 years since) succeed Robert and they are not father and son. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| talk page!]] 00:45, November 2, 2012 : True, but in that occasion it was because Robert was son-less. Violet's words of "A stranger from GOD KNOWS WHERE" indicate that it has been either a) father and son, b) uncle and nephew/great-uncle or nephew or c) grandfather to grandson. The last one is VERY unlikely, since the press pack confirms that the title of EARL OF GRANTHAM was created for the Crawley Family in 1772, meaning Grandfather to Grandson would not provide enough Earls for Robert to be sixth Earl. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 00:49, November 2, 2012 (UTC) : There are not fixed terms for being the Earl of Grantham. An Earl could hold the title for 30 years or 30 days. CestWhat (talk) 01:11, November 2, 2012 (UTC) :: Doing the maths, given that there have been six earls (Robert is 6, and Patrick was 5) between 1772 and 1912, we can infer, but not outright state, that it is 23.3333333333333333 (and so on and so forth) years for each man to be Earl. Any LESS than that, and it's not possible, since there wouldn't be enough years, so each earl was earl for AT LEAST 23.33333 (and so on and so forth) years. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 01:21, November 2, 2012 (UTC) : We can't infer 23.3 years? No, we can't even do that. Again and again, there aren't any sort of fix average amount of years for somebody being the Earl of Grantham. CestWhat (talk) 01:57, November 2, 2012 (UTC) : True, but 23.3 years is (if we divide 140 - since 1912 is 140 years before 1772 - by 6 - since there are six Earls) the most likely number of years: I won't, of course, write this in the article, since we have no idea if all the Earls were an Earl for 23.3 years; after all, the 4th Earl died early and Patrick spent 30 years as Earl - Violet says she ran Downton for thirty years - meaning that the ranges do change, but 23.3 is the average number of years. : On a side note, check the bottom of my talk page: There's something you should see. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 02:11, November 2, 2012 (UTC) : That isn't how you average the reign of an Earl. Earls don't inherited at a set age or live for the same number of years. Just an example at random would be King William IV reigning for 6 years and 359 days while his niece and successor Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years, 216 days. To actually get an average, you would have to know how long each reigned and then divide it by the number of Earls. Back to the topic at hand. Nothing so far sourced or inferred by sourced information establishes that Violet's mother-in-law was ever a Countess herself. CestWhat (talk) 02:48, November 2, 2012 (UTC) I know that we do not know if Violet's mother WAS a Countess - I did write in the article that "Violet's mother-in-law, who may or MAY NOT have been the Fourth Countess of Grantham, lived in Crawley House." HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 02:58, November 2, 2012 (UTC) :It doesn't make sense to include it, then, as you go on to say immediately afterwards that we simply do not know if she was. It would be the same as putting up that "Violet's paternal grandfather might have been Pope, unless he wasn't", or that "Matthew enjoyed wearing female undergarments, unless he didn't". Both are true, but their content is none, and they add nothing to the article, IMO. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| talk page!]] 21:26, November 2, 2012 (UTC) Don't worry, I won't be adding anything - and how do we know Violet's maternal Grandfather WASN'T the pope? The only family we know are her sister, a possible brother-in-law (an aunt who married a Gordon in the 1860s"), a niece, a nephew-in-law, a great niece, Violet's husband and descendants - we have no indication of her parents. :That's precisely the point: we do not know, ergo, we shouldn't add nothing of the sort to the article -- it's common sense, really. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| talk page!]] 23:21, November 2, 2012 (UTC) I'm not adding anything to the article - don't worry. HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 23:29, November 2, 2012 (UTC)